Tamura, Y. (2016). Is acquiring knowledge of verb subcategorization in English easier? A partial replication of Jiang (2007). Paper presented at PacSLRF2016. Chuo University, Tokyo Japan. September 11, 2016

1. Is Acquiring Knowledge of Verb
Subcategorization in English Easier?
A Partial Replication of Jiang (2007)
September 11, 2016
PacSLRF 2016
Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan
1

2. Overview
• Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
• Problems with Jiang (2007)
• The present study
• Participants
• Materials and procedures
• Results
• Discussion
2

3. Overview
• Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
• Problems with Jiang (2007)
• The present study
• Participants
• Materials and procedures
• Results
• Discussion
3

4. • Purpose
• To investigate integrated knowledge of adult L2
learners of English
• How?
• Using self-paced reading task
• Findings
• plural -s: ☓ , verb subcategorization: ⃝
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
4

5. • Purpose
• To investigate integrated knowledge of adult L2
learners of English
• How?
• Using self-paced reading task
• Findings
• plural -s: ☓ , verb subcategorization: ⃝
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
5

6. Yu TAMURA
Graduate School, Nagoya University
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
6

7. • Integrated knowledge
• Used spontaneously both in comprehension and
production
• Unconsciously activated
• With minimal cognitive resource
• With no or less attention to accuracy
• Integrated knowledge <-> automatized
performance
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
7

8. • Why is automatized performance important?
• It’s the ultimate goal of second language
acquisition/instruction
• SLA is the process of knowledge integration
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
8

9. • Selective integration
• The difference between child’s L1 acquisition and
adult’s L2 acquisition
• Some structures are more likely to be fossilized or
less likely to be integrated
• ESL learner’s knowledge of inflectional morphology
never reaches at the level of native speakers
• No matter what process it might be, integration of
linguistic knowledge has to be selective
• Ease of integration depends on linguistic structures
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
9

10. • Purpose
• To investigate integrated knowledge of adult L2
learners of English
• How?
• Using self-paced reading task
• Findings
• plural -s: ☓ , verb subcategorization: ⃝
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
10

11. • Self-paced reading task
• Required to read as fast as possible
• Focus on meaning
• Native speakers take longer time to read when they
encounter grammatical errors.
• Even without instruction
• Even when the errors do not prevent comprehension
• The delay is the evidence of possessing integrated
knowledge
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
11

12. • Self-paced reading task
• Explicit knowledge cannot work as monitor during
the task
• Whether or not the learners have integrated
knowledge can be measured as whether there is
a delay in reading
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
12

13. • Participants
• Chinese ESL learners (N = 26)
• Native speakers of English (N = 26)
• Materials
• plural morphemes : 32 items
• verb subcategorization: 32 items
• SVO + NP (10 items)
• The mayor promised to offer/*keep the returning advisor a better
position soon.
• SVO + to infinitives (12 items)
• The teacher wanted/*insisted the students to start all over again.
• SVO + PP (6 items)
• Her parents later married/*found her to a millionaire in Thailand.
• SVO + adj (2 items)
• Everyone considered/*believed the girl innocent after they had heard
the story.
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
13

14. • Participants
• Chinese ESL learners (N = 26)
• Native speakers of English (N = 26)
• Materials
• plural morphemes : 32 items
• verb subcategorization: 32 items
• SVO + NP (10 items)
• The mayor promised to offer/*keep the returning advisor a better
position soon.
• SVO + to infinitives (12 items)
• The teacher wanted/*insisted the students to start all over again.
• SVO + PP (6 items)
• Her parents later married/*found her to a millionaire in Thailand.
• SVO + adj (2 items)
• Everyone considered/*believed the girl innocent after they had heard
the story.
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
14

15. • Results
• NS
• significant RT differences in both structures
• NNS
• significant RT differences in only verb
subcategorization
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
15

16. • Discussion
• Compatible to the results of Jiang (2004)
• Why?
• L1 influence
• Teachability Hypothesis (Pienemann, 1989)
• Weak Interface Hypothesis (R. Ellis, 1997)
• Starting age (DeKeyser, 2000)
• Frequency (N. Ellis, 2002)
• However, none of the above factors can fully explain the
results
Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
16

17. Overview
• Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
• Problems with Jiang (2007)
• The present study
• Participants
• Materials and procedures
• Results
• Discussion
17

18. Overview
• Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
• Problems with Jiang (2007)
• The present study
• Participants
• Materials and procedures
• Results
• Discussion
18

19. • Is the delay really the evidence of using integrated
knowledge of verb subcategorization?
• Ungrammatical version of the test items seemed
not to be as much plausible as grammatical
versions
• ex. An attempt was made to persuade/*give the
school board to change the policy.
Problems with Jiang (2007)
19

20. • L2 learners tend to use meaning-driven processing
mechanism if the task does not require them to use
syntactic processing (e.g., Lim and Christianson,
2013)
• The RT differences obtained in Jiang (2007) might
be due to breakdown of processing meaning
Problems with Jiang (2007)
20

21. Overview
• Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
• Problems with Jiang (2007)
• The present study
• Participants
• Materials and procedures
• Results
• Discussion
21

22. • Purpose of the Present Study
• To investigate the effect of comprehensibility of
the test items used in Jiang (2007)
The Present Study
22

23. Overview
• Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
• Problems with Jiang (2007)
• The present study
• Participants
• Materials and procedures
• Results
• Discussion
23

24. • Japanese undergraduate and graduate students (N
= 32)
Table 1.
Demographic Information of the Participants
Participants
n M SD Min Max
Age 31 24.77 5.35 20 40
TOEIC 32 824.22 113.12 550 990
Note. One participant did not report their age.
24

25. Overview
• Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
• Problems with Jiang (2007)
• The present study
• Participants
• Materials and procedures
• Results
• Discussion
25

26. • On the basis of the test items used in Jiang (2004, 2007)
• Slightly modified some difficult vocabularies on the basis of
JACET 8000
• millionaire -> rich; unwise ->ridiculous etc.
• They had to teach the employees Chinese before sending
them to China (Grammatical)
• *They had to train the employees Chinese before sending
them to China (Ungrammatical)
• 64 test items (G: 32, UG:32) in total
• Half of the items was followed by yes-no comprehension
questions
Materials and Procedures
26

27. • How to identify the target regions?
• Jiang (2007)
• The teacher wanted the student to start all over again.
• *The teacher insisted the student to start all over again.
• “reading times for ‘start’ were compared” (p.13)
• Shouldn’t it be “to”?
• However, in some other items, two words after the target verb should be
the target region
• We all called him captain at the time.
• *We all needed him captain at the time.
• They had done little to make their children happy and successful in life.
• * They had done little to provide their children happy and successful in life.
Materials and Procedures
27
1 2 3 4
significant RT
differences were
reported in 3 and 4
How could these items
be treated equally?1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4

28. • How to identify the target regions?
• In Jiang (2007)
• It seems the target regions were different across the test
items, although the comparison is minimum within each
pair
• In this study
• Target regions were set to be where the
ungrammaticality first arises
• *The teacher insisted the student to start all over again.
• *We all needed him captain at the time.
• * They had done little to provide their children happy and successful in life.
Materials and Procedures
28
1 2 3
1 2 3
1 2 3

29. ____ ___ ________ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ _____
The ___ ________ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ _____
___ teacher ________ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ _____
____ ___ wanted _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ _____
____ ___ ______ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ _____
____ ___ ______ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ _____
____ ___ ______ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ _____
____ ___ ______ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ _____
____ ___ ______ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ _____
____ ___ ______ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ again. _____
____ ___ ______ _____ ___ _____ _____ ___ __ ____ 次へ
Materials and Procedures
Computer-based self-paced reading task
• Moving window version
• Word-by-word manner
29

30. • Two counterbalanced forms (A and B) and two
sessions
• A1, B1: 16 sentences (G:8, UG:8) + 28 fillers
• A2, B2: 16 sentences (G:8, UG:8) + 28 fillers
• The order of the items was randomized
• The order of the two sessions was counterbalanced
Materials and Procedures
30

31. • Comprehensibility questionnaire
• Instructions were all written in Japanese
• Five-point Likert scale
• 1: 意味がまったくわからない (I don’t get the meaning of
the sentence at all) — 5: 意味がとてもよくわかる (I get
the meaning of the sentence very well)
• The participants answered the questionnaire after they
completed the self-paced reading task
• The participants did not see the same items which they saw
in the self-paced reading task
Materials and Procedures
31

32. • Analysis
• Outliers removed (4.5%):
• Responses below 200ms
• Responses above the Mean RT+3SD of each
participant in each condition
• t1 = where the ungrammaticality first arises
• t2 and t3 = for spill-over effects
Materials and Procedures
32

33. • Analysis
• A series of Generalized linear mixed-effects models
(GLMM)
• Response variables: Raw RT
• Explanatory variables:
• grammaticality (condition): 2 levels
• comprehensibility: centered around grand mean
• word length: centered around grand mean
• Gamma distribution and identity link function
Materials and Procedures
33

34. Overview
• Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
• Problems with Jiang (2007)
• The present study
• Participants
• Materials and procedures
• Results
• Discussion
34

35. Results
Table 2.
Mean RTs (ms) and SDs (in parentheses) in each condition
N = 32
35
t1 t2 ｔ3
G
557
(144)
522
(112)
511
(110)
UG
546
(128)
555
(135)
534
(112)
t 0.69 1.77 1.16
p 0.50 0.09 0.25
Correlation 0.78 0.64 0.49
d -0.08 0.27 0.21
d (paired) -0.12 0.32 0.21

36. 200
250
300
350
400
450
500
550
600
ｔ1 t2 ｔ3
G
UG
36
GLMM including only the main effect of
condition found significant RT differences

37. Results
Table 3.
The Results of Paired sample t-tests of the comprehensibility
questionnaire
N = 32
G UG
M 4.12 3.80
SD 0.45 0.56
t1 t = 4.43, p < .001
t2 t = 2.20, p = .04
G UG
012345
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
● ●
●●
●
●
●
● ●● ●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Figure 2.
Box plot of the results of
comprehensibility questionnaire.
Red points indicate each
participant’s mean score and blue
points indicate mean scores in each
condition.
37
Cohen’s d for item analysis
d = 0.54 [0.04, 1.08]

38. Results
Table 4.
The Results of GLMM (region t1)
38
Random effects
Fixed effects By Subject By Items
Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD
Intercept 584.71 15.29 38.24 <.001 80.17 55.85
Condition -7.81 13.92 -0.56 .57 51.70 50.93
comprehensibility 1.28 14.11 0.09 .92 46.22 —
word length 23.17 5.92 3.91 <.001 — —
Interaction 39.08 19.81 1.97 .048 — —
Note. Number of observations: 999, N = 32, K =32

39. Interaction between
condition and comprehensibility
Region t1
39
condition*c.comp in t1
c.comp
rt 500
520
540
560
580
600
620
640
−1.0 −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4
condition
G UG
Note. grey and pink areas show 95%CI

40. Results
Table 5.
The Results of GLMM (region t2)
40
Random effects
Fixed effects By Subject By Items
Parameters Estimate SE t p SD SD
Intercept 559.69 15.74 35.55 <.001 68.41 44.90
Condition 43.392 14.81 2.93 <.01 63.53 52.71
comprehensibility 2.61 12.99 0.20 .840 48.78 12.32
word length 25.57 5.54 4.62 <.001 — —
Interaction 35.56 14.12 2.52 .011 — —
Note. Number of observations: 993, N = 32, K =32

41. Interaction between
condition and comprehensibility
Region t2
41
condition*c.comp in t2
c.comp
rt
500
520
540
560
580
600
620
−1.0 −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4
condition
G UG
Note. grey and pink areas show 95%CI

42. Results
Table 6.
The Results of GLMM (region t3)
42
Random effects
Fixed effects By Subject By Items
Parameters Estimat
e
SE t p SD SD
Intercept 522.25 14.49 36.04 <.001 59.12 36.84
Condition 20.91 12.71 1.65 .10 50.17 42.90
comprehensibility -15.27 12.49 -1.22 .221 41.49 15.71
word length 25.594 4.28 5.98 <.001 — —
Interaction -29.19 16.00 -1.82 .068 — —
Note. Number of observations: 998, N = 32, K =32

43. Interaction between
condition and comprehensibility
Region t3
43
condition*c.comp in t3
c.comp
rt
480
500
520
540
560
580
600
−1.0 −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4
condition
G UG
Note. grey and pink areas show 95%CI

44. Overview
• Brief overview of Jiang (2007)
• Problems with Jiang (2007)
• The present study
• Participants
• Materials and procedures
• Results
• Discussion
44

45. Findings
• Comprehensibility of the test items
• Overall, the grammatical items were rated more
comprehensible than the ungrammatical ones
• However, some of the grammatical items were rated worse
than their ungrammatical counterparts (see Appendix)
• Those items were not acquired yet?
• The effects of grammaticality and comprehensibility on RT
• Possible interaction between grammaticality and
comprehensibility
• Grammaticality and comprehensibility might not be in a linear
relationship
Discussion
45

46. Findings
• Comprehensibility of the test items
• Overall, the grammatical items were rated more
comprehensible than the ungrammatical ones
• However, some of the grammatical ones were rated worse
than their ungrammatical counterparts (see Appendix)
• Those items were not acquired yet?
• The effects of grammaticality and comprehensibility on RT
• Possible interaction between grammaticality and
comprehensibility
• Grammaticality and comprehensibility might not be in a linear
relationship
Discussion
46

47. • Possible interaction between grammaticality and
comprehensibility
• In region t2
• The more comprehensible, the larger the effect of
grammaticality
• Learners’ sensitivity to the errors were found only if the
sentences were comprehensible
• No strong main effect of comprehensibility to the delay of
RT
• In region t1 and t3
• The less comprehensible, the larger the effect of
grammaticality
Discussion
47
condition*c.comp in t2
c.comp
rt
500
520
540
560
580
600
620
−1.0 −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4
condition
G UG
condition*c.comp in t3
c.comp
rt
480
500
520
540
560
580
600
−1.0 −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4
condition
G UG

48. Findings
• Comprehensibility of the test items
• Overall, the grammatical items were rated more
comprehensible than the ungrammatical ones
• However, some of the grammatical ones were rated worse
than their ungrammatical counterparts (see Appendix)
• Those items were not acquired yet?
• The effects of grammaticality and comprehensibility on RT
• Possible interaction between grammaticality and
comprehensibility
• Grammaticality and comprehensibility might not be in a linear
relationship
Discussion
48

49. • Grammaticality and comprehensibility might not be
in a linear relationship
• The effect of grammaticality was influenced by
the comprehensibility of the test items
• L2 learners use both meaning driven and
syntactic-driven processing dynamically during
self-paced reading
• RT differences observed in the study might not be
all due to the fact that L2 learners automatized
the knowledge of verb-subcategorization
Discussion
49

50. • The test items used in Jiang (2007) need a careful revision to examine the
knowledge of verb-subcategorization
• Syntactic position of the target regions should be controlled across the
sentences
• Ideally, the types of constructions (e.g., SVO + to V, SVO + PP, etc.) should
also be controlled
• Selective integration?
• Number agreement -> less effect of ungrammaticality to the meaning
• Subcategorization -> more effect of ungrammaticality to the meaning
• These two types of grammatical knowledge should not be directly compared
• GLMM would be preferable
• to take into account word length
• to take into account participants’ and items’ variance
• to see the interaction between meaning and syntactic processing
Discussion
50

51. • Limitations
• The participants in Jiang (2007)’s study were
more proficient
• Determination of the target regions might be
different than the original study
Discussion
51

52. Jiang, N. (2007). Selective integration of linguistic knowledge in adult
second language learning. Language Learning, 57, 1–33. doi:
10.1111/j.1467-9922.2007.00397.x
Lim, J. H., & Christianson, K. (2013). Integrating meaning and
structure in L1–L2 and L2–L1 translations. Second Language
Research, 29, 233–256. doi:10.1177/0267658312462019
References
52

53. Is Acquiring Knowledge of Verb Subcategorization in
English Easier? A Partial Replication of Jiang (2007)
contact info Yu Tamura
Graduate School, Nagoya University
yutamura@nagoya-u.jp
http://www.tamurayu.wordpress.com/
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
550
600
ｔ1 t2 ｔ3
G
UG
• The test items and
the analyses should
be revised
• The effect of
grammaticality was
influenced by
comprehensibility of
the items
53
condition*c.comp in t1
c.comp
rt
500
520
540
560
580
600
620
640
−1.0 −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4
condition
G UG
condition*c.comp in t2
c.comp
rt
500
520
540
560
580
600
620
−1.0 −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4
condition
G UG
condition*c.comp in t3
c.comp
rt
480
500
520
540
560
580
600
−1.0 −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4
condition
G UG

54. 54
comprehensibility condition k t1 t2 t3
G>UG G 9 569 526 504
UG 9 546 557 544
UG>G G 23 528 510 523
UG 23 548 548 508
All G 32 557 522 510
UG 32 546 555 534
Table 7.
Mean RTs (ms) across three types of items in each condition

55. 55